Writings, News
Jo Higgins
Routledge publication: Youth Programs in Art ...
Routledge publication: Youth Programs in Art Museums - An International Perspective
Writings
Jo Higgins
Art Guide Australia: Field Notes. A Grassroots ...
Art Guide Australia: Field Notes. A Grassroots Approach to Public Art
Events, Review, News
Jo Higgins
Berlin trip: Connected Audiences Conference and ...
Berlin trip: Connected Audiences Conference and some Art, Art, Art....
Writings, News
Jo Higgins
Art Guide Australia: Home Truths - feature story
Art Guide Australia: Home Truths - feature story
News, Writings
Jo Higgins
Artlink magazine's 'Hyphen' issue published
Artlink magazine's 'Hyphen' issue published

National Gallery Australia

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Routledge publication: Youth Programs in Art Museums - An International Perspective

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The long tail of my 2018 Churchill Fellowship continues to unfurl in both learnings and opportunities.

18 months ago I was approached by the editors of a then-forthcoming Routledge publication gathering international perspectives on youth programs in art museums. They were looking for an Australian contributor and the always generous Betsy Gibbons at ICA Boston, who I had the immense privilege to meet and learn from during my Fellowship, sent them in my direction. And now, it's out in the world.

My contribution, "Where to From Here? Reflections on Future-Proofing People, Programs, and Museums" picks up on many of the same threads I had started to pull in my essay "The Museum as a Cowboy Place" for Artlink magazine’s Hyphen issue last Summer, expertly edited by Ava Lacoon, Claire Osborn-Li and Hen Vaughan.

It reiterates the learnings and provocations I (hope I) offered at the Connected Audiences Conference in Berlin in May with the brilliant Yael Filipovic. It's a reflection on the last nearly 10 years of work, research, care and collaboration - as well as some of the programs I've had the privilege to steer, including the gone-but-not-forgotten MCA GENEXT at MCA Australia and the also-now-gone-but-also-not-forgotten National Young Writers Program at the National Gallery of Australia.

It's probably a more hopeful essay than I actually feel right now but looking at the book's contents page - noting so many experts and champions (including quite a few others I also got to meet back in 2019, thanks to my Churchill) - I feel really proud of this body of work and grateful to have had the opportunity to make the case (again) for the importance of youth arts programming in and for museums, as well as for young people, now and into the future.

Also, I love that the photo I snapped in a hurry during an especially chaotic GENEXT 'fridge poetry x music lyric mashup' workshop inspired by the art of Jenny Watson back in 2018, that I included as my essay's illustration, inspired the title of co-editor Susan McCullough's introduction.

What we had together was indeed gorgeous.

OTHER POSTS

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Artlink magazine's 'Hyphen' issue published

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Of the many genuinely special outcomes to emerge from the National Young Writers Program that I’ve been leading at the National Gallery of Australia for the last couple of years, this latest issue of Artlink magazine has to be one of the proudest.

Artlink has been publishing thematic issues dedicating to contemporary art practice across Australia and the Asia-Pacific for over four decades. It’s a rigorous, provocative, thoughtful publication that has long championed emerging and early career writers. I should know. My first by-line was a review for Artlink over 20 years ago (a Very Cringe Read all these years later, but still.)

Having Artlink Editor Una Rey and Assistant Editor Belinda Howden join the National Young Writers Program this year - with Artlink as official Publishing Partner - has brought another level of rigour, context, professionalism and care to the program. Their faith (in me, the program, the participants) to offer up their Summer issue to three program alumni to guest-edit as part of a paid professional development mentorship has been such a huge undertaking.

Back in July, Claire Osborn-Li, Ava Lacoon and Hen Vaughan were selected as guest editors and they’ve been working with Una and Belinda over the last five months to conceive, commission, edit and deliver their issue, Hyphen. It is now officially out in the world…

I feel very proud of them and very proud to have contributed an essay to this issue. “The Museum As A Cowboy Place” is my rethinking of the critical role of youth programs and young people to museums in the wake of MCA Australia quietly shuttering their Young Creatives programs earlier this year, including GENEXT, the Youth Committee and Young Guides.

The museums might be struggling (and/or getting it wrong) but if Hyphen and its guest editors and other young writers are any measure of things to come, the future feels salvage-able/possible/bright?….

You can order a hardcopy and/or buy a digital version of Hyphen via the Artlink website here. Please support the magazine and these writers. And if you want a taste - Claire, Ava and Hen’s editorial is available to read free here.

OTHER POSTS

NGA National Young Writers Digital Residency launches

The National Young Writers Program at the NGA has just launched its 2024 digital residency for 16 early career arts writers and creatives.

It’s been a really productive last 12 months reflecting on the pilot mentorship program and taking those learnings forward to deepen and extend the program offering.

The residency will introduce participants to a range of critical writing practices and ideas through the Gallery’s exhibition program, with each session co-curated by invited guest editors and writers.

Participants will have opportunities to respond to regular writing prompts, with feedback and mentoring, as well as paid writing commissions for the Gallery’s website.

I’m incredibly excited too, that Artlink magazine is joining us as Publishing Partner this year with some incredible opportunities for program alumni to come later this year.

Guest writers, editors and artists include Art Guide Australia editor Tiarney Miekus; arts writer, curator and Memo Review editor Amelia Winata; arts writer Tom Melick; writer, poet and researcher Charmaine Papertalk Green; and artist Lindy Lee.

You can read more about the Residency on the National Gallery of Australia here.

OTHER POSTS

Panel talk: Australian Museums & Galleries Association National Conference

On Tuesday I chaired a panel talk at the annual Australian Museums and Galleries Association national conference, which is being held in Newcastle, on Worimi Country, this year.

The panel talk was a reflection on last year’s pilot Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program, which I developed and ran for the National Gallery of Australia.

I was so grateful to be joined by curator and academic Nur Shkembi, one of the mentors on the program, mentee and emerging curator and arts writer Jade Irvine and the Gallery’s Tim Fairfax Digital Learning Manager, Julia Mendel.

Over the course of an hour we talked about what the project entailed – the inherent risks and rewards in piloting a program designed to support and elevate critical young voices, what it set out to achieve, the challenges, and what participating in it has left us all reflecting on.

You can watch the panel talk here.

OTHER POSTS

Published outcomes - National Gallery of Australia: Digital Young Writers Mentorship

I’m looking forward to sharing some reflections and learnings from this project in the coming months. But in the meantime - some publication highlights from the program’s mentees:

ASSEMBLY: An annotation

Hen Vaughan responds to the themes of translation and collectivity in Angelica Mesiti’s three-channel video installation, ASSEMBLY.

Is social media affecting how we engage with art?

Aisyah Aaqil Sumito interviews artist Dan Bourke about the impact of Web 2.0 on our cognitive reading of art, pointing to children learning in a new exhibition.

This interview was published by ArtsHub, the publishing partner of the Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program.

Contemporary Resonances of Art in the Age of AIDS

Aisyah Aaqil Sumito reflects on the contemporary resonances of the trailblazing 1994 exhibition, ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way: Art in the Age of AIDS.’

A Modern Approach to Exhibiting Costume

Michelle Guo explores the challenges that curators encounter when exhibiting costume, and the unique way that they have gone about acquiring Justene Williams’ costumes for ‘Victory Over the Sun’.

Kara Walker’s Monument

Jade Irvine reflects on African American artist Kara Walker’s use of scale - from intimate to monumental - and her consideration of the histories that are memorialised and those that remain obscured.

REVIEW: Deborah Prior - On The Third Day

Hen Vaughan review's Deborah Prior’s powerful new textile exhibition at JamFactory Seppeltsfield, On The Third Day, for the Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program’s publishing partner, ArtsHub.

REVIEW: HOME | LAND

Jade Irvine reviews the group exhibition, HOME | LAND, at Hobart’s Contemporary Art Tasmania for ArtsHub, the publishing partner of the Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program.

OTHER POSTS

I live and work on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people and acknowledge their unbroken connection to this Country. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders, past and present, because this always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.